2013 Lunar Festival (January 27 - February 9) Guide

It's time for the first in-game holiday of 2013, the Lunar Festival--so everyone break out the fireworks, show a little respect for your elders, and come celebrate the (lunar) new year!

The Lunar Festival is held every year starting on a date that typically coincides with the Chinese New Year. 2013's Lunar Festival starts on January 27 and ends on February 9--a bit shorter than last year's. Ancestors of Azeroth are praised and honored by both Horde and Alliance, who then reward players with a special title, Elder <Name>, a celebration in Moonglade, and numerous Coin of Ancestry that can be used to purchase festive garb, patterns and fireworks!

While there were significant additions and changes in 2012, the Lunar Festival for 2013 doesn't have many changes. We've updated the post to reflect the new battle pet abilities the seasonal pets have gotten, and will update this guide once the holiday goes live if there are further changes.

Click the cut to get started!

Honoring Elders

Honoring elders is one of the main activities of the festival. In 2012's Lunar Festival, 9 elders have been added in zones new to Cataclysm.

RewardsFinding and honoring an elder will reward you with 75 reputation with all of your major city factions and a Coin of Ancestry, which can be used as a currency to purchase festival-related items. Honoring every elder will grant you 84 Coin of Ancestry, and over 6000 reputation (before bonuses). Players are reporting that you will not receive this reputation bonus applied to factions you are already Honored or above with.

Starting in 2012, honoring elders also grants experience and gold, making this a nice leveling boost for alts.

Complete List and Map

Tip: Clicking on the coordinates in the tables below will open a map of the elder's location in a lightbox. To view your character and your mouse cursor's coordinates on the in-game world map, you can use our very own addon, the Wowhead Looter (type /wl loc map).

Lunar FireworksStart & End:Lunar Festival HarbingerTo complete this quest you must purchase fireworks from a nearby Lunar Festival Vendor and use them nearby. The large fireworks clusters (such as Blue Rocket Cluster) will require use of a firework launcher, which can be found on the ground around the main Lunar Festival camps. Simply purchase and fire off the specified quantity of fireworks and return the quest to pick up the follow-up.You will receive a Lunar Festival Invitation which can be used to teleport to Moonglade by using it while standing in the 'Greater Moonlight' (a huge, white beam of light located in the main Festival camps). Once in Moonglade, you can teleport back to any major faction city by standing in the correct beam (which are distinguished by racial revelers around each beam). This invitation does have a duration but you can get a new one from the Lunar Festival Harbinger at any time during the festival.

Elune's BlessingStart & End:Valadar StarsongThis quest is actually flagged as a Raid quest in-game, though it shouldn't take very many level 70 or higher players at all to complete. Simply purchase (or acquire through quests or crafting) some rocket clusters from a Lunar Festival Vendor and head down to the Stormrage Barrow Dens in Moonglade, southeast of Lake Elune'ara. Fire off the fireworks in the nearby cluster launchers to alert the Minion of Omen to your presence. You can use the Elune's Candle obtained from Elune's Candle or purchased for 10 silver from Valadar Starsong to do additional damage to the Minions and Omen himself.Continue firing off rockets and defeating the Minions and eventually the demon Omen will spawn. He is a Level ?? (Boss) NPC so his actual level will most likely be 3 levels higher than the average level of your group. Even still, he is not a very difficult boss. After Omen is defeated, you must be near his corpse to obtain the Elune's Blessing buff required to complete the quest. You don't have to get credit on the kill. Receive the buff and return to Valadar to complete the quest, which rewards the nifty Elune's Lantern which can turn Solid Stone into Elune Stone - not amazing, but still pretty cool!

Coin of Ancestry Redemption

Valadar Starsong and Fariel Starsong can be found in Moonglade selling items using Coin of Ancestry as currency. All of the items they sell are Bind of Pickup--except for the new pets. While you can obtain only a maximum of 84 Coin of Ancestry per year, they have no duration--so if you have some left over from a previous year's Festival you can use them to obtain more rewards!

Elders of CataclysmHonor the Elders which are located in zones opened by the cataclysm.For this achievement, you must honor all 9 elders founded in zones added in Cataclysm. For elder locations, refer to the tabs above. This achievement is new to 2012.

Elders of Eastern KingdomsHonor the Elders which are located in Eastern Kingdoms.For this achievement, you must honor all 17 elders found throughout the Eastern Kingdoms. For elder locations, refer to the tabs above.

Elders of KalimdorHonor the Elders which are located in Kalimdor.For this achievement, you must honor all 21 elders found throughout Kalimdor. For elder locations, refer to the tabs above.

Elders of NorthrendHonor the Elders which are located in Northrend.For this achievement, you must honor all 18 elders found throughout Northrend (and, incidentally, you must also have the Wrath of the Lich King expansion). For elder locations, refer to the tabs above.

Elders of the DungeonsHonor the Elders which are located inside the dungeons.For this achievement, you must honor all 13 elders found inside various dungeons of Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor and Northrend. For elder locations, refer to the tabs above.

Elders of the AllianceHonor the Elders which are located in the Alliance capital cities.For this achievement, you must honor all 3 elders located in major Alliance cities. As the elders are friendly to both factions, this achievement is able to be completed by both Horde and Alliance players. For elder locations, refer to the tabs above.

Elders of the HordeHonor the Elders which are located in the Horde capital cities.For this achievement, you must honor all 3 elders located in major Horde cities. As the elders are friendly to both factions, this achievement is able to be completed by both Horde and Alliance players. For elder locations, refer to the tabs above.

Lunar Festival FineryPurchase a festive pant suit or festive dress with Coins of Ancestry.To complete this achievement, you must purchase either a festive pant suit or festive dress from Valadar Starsong with Coin of Ancestry obtained from honoring the elders. The festival clothing can be purchased for 5 Coin of Ancestry. There are three different dresses and three different pant suits that can be purchased, so you can get all of them to complete your very own Lunar Festival wardrobe (though the achievement does only require one). The clothing is Bind on Pickup, but items can be purchased by characters of any level so this is a great opportunity to deck out your bank alt in style!

Comments

Comment by Ozlem

Awe was hoping for some kick-tooshie new RP gear, like maybe a yellow, orange and red outfit with maybe a cherry blossom head piece, something to silently salute the Pandarian flavour of the game now.

Still I'm grateful for this I always have no room in my void vault or bank and my Luna RP gear always gets trashed mid year and I always regret doing so I get the chance to go back and get my pretty dress back each year ^.^

Comment by Severage

on 2013-01-27T20:56:53-06:00

I started playing WoW around this time last year, and was unable to get the meta-achieve to go toward "What a long strange trip it's been..." (Insert Yo Dawg Meme)

Anyway - wanted to ask, is this meta-achievement shared between accounts? I'd really like to get it on my level 87 Death Knight since he needs extra EXP, I figure it'll kill two birds with one stone. But if it's not shared, my Priest main has all the other achievements.

Thanks in advance,

~Sev

Comment by Adamsm

on 2013-01-27T21:01:57-06:00

Yes it is shared.

Comment by jamesworthy

on 2013-01-27T21:23:42-06:00

Wanna level an alt the easy way and dont give a damn how long it takes... boy do we have a Holiday for YOU!

Comment by ozielan

on 2013-01-27T23:03:28-06:00

what a cut-n-paste job...

Comment by BaconStripsBacon

on 2013-01-27T23:16:04-06:00

Grinding this purely for the purpose of getting the "Elder" title on my mage...NAMED SCROLLS.ELDER SCROLLS.Yeah, I find it hilarious... but grinding this is not hilarious.

Comment by Kiokiba

on 2013-01-28T00:11:05-06:00

Am I the only one who noticed that the title says 2013, but the article says "New to 2012"?(Under the part about the lantern Pets)

Comment by Severage

on 2013-01-28T01:05:51-06:00

Wowhead, updating your maps would be useful if you don't mind. I don't mind that you're copy/pasting from last year, except that *SOME* information has changed, and I found that many of these NPC's locations has been altered a bit, causing some frustration on my end.

Thanks.

Comment by guatafu

on 2013-01-28T01:36:11-06:00

How does this help with alt leveling?

Comment by alinoor

on 2013-01-28T03:45:00-06:00

Nice night elf artwork up there hehe

Comment by rikapi

on 2013-01-28T05:32:33-06:00

A bit disappointing that there's nothing new, but still gonna do it on alts nonetheless... I don't have much time left to level my alts to 89 to increase chances (i.e. more boss runs per day) for Big Love Rocket in a few weeks...

@guatafu: each coin quest gives you xp.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2013-01-28T05:33:23-06:00

Am I the only one who noticed that the title says 2013, but the article says "New to 2012"?(Under the part about the lantern Pets)

Because that's when the Lantern Pets were introduced?

How does this help with alt leveling?

You get a nice chunk of exp for collecting coins.

Comment by Opalmonkey

on 2013-01-28T05:39:41-06:00

This will probably sound stupid, but is it possible to do every single Lunar festival achievement with a level 70 toon?

Comment by Adamsm

on 2013-01-28T05:56:17-06:00

This will probably sound stupid, but is it possible to do every single Lunar festival achievement with a level 70 toon?

Nope, since you need to be 77+ for some of the Northrend Dungeon elders.

Comment by merckx1976

on 2013-01-28T06:50:35-06:00

im lvling my monk im lvling my guild bank i get a comanion that i can sell for acouple k awsome

Comment by merckx1976

on 2013-01-28T07:07:14-06:00

btw i made like 900g when i did it on main in quest rewards and the pet work well with my monk it has an asian feel to it

Comment by brink1980

on 2013-01-28T07:33:48-06:00

Still no mount:(

Comment by Valkyros

on 2013-01-28T09:48:44-06:00

just a note on the Mauradon Elder, the description puts him between Rotgrip and Gizlocke, but Gizlocke got moved to the entrance.

Edit: he's now at the Wicked Grotto entrance instead of the Waterfall area (Gizlocke that is)